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by Stockwatch Business Reporter

The TSX Venture Exchange fell 4.05 points to 929.99 Tuesday. Today in the shell sector, two men from Kuwait, Dr. Eyad Al Saleh and Sami Al Saleh, disclosed an option for a gold property in British Columbia as a qualifying transaction for their halted shell, Interconnect Ventures Corp. (IVC). Elsewhere, ViXS Systems Inc., the QT target of Ron Schmeichel's W 7 Acquisition Corp. (WSV), touted its inclusion as No. 470 in PROFIT Magazine's PROFIT 500.

Dr. Eyad Al Saleh's Interconnect has a letter of intent with Benjamin Ainsworth's Alpha Minerals Inc. (AMW: $4.03) to option a 70-per-cent interest in the Donna gold property, located in the Vernon mining district of B.C. The shell must pay $100,000 cash, issue 400,000 shares and spend $600,000 on exploration, all over three years.

Although this appears to be another dull mining deal, there is something peculiar about the men behind this shell, how they acquired control, and their odd decision to option a gold property. In February of this year, the two men from Kuwait acquired large positions in Interconnect, which had listed on the TSX-V in April, 2012. Dr. Eyad Al Saleh is a professor of medicine at Kuwait University. His full name is Dr. Eyad Abdul Razzak Saleh Abdul Wahab Saleh Al Saleh. He acquired 896,000 shares at 25 cents a share by private placement, and then agreed to place his shares in escrow. Sami Al Saleh, possibly a relative of the doctor, acquired 664,000 shares at 25 cents a share, increasing his total position to 900,500 shares. There are no earlier filings to indicate when he acquired the other shares. The acquisitions gave each of Dr. Eyad Al Saleh and Sami Al Saleh control over 20 per cent of Interconnect's outstanding shares. At a time when acquiring shells can be cheap, they paid the princely price of 25 cents a share, or double what Interconnect's founding directors paid for each of their escrow shares, of which there are 800,000 outstanding (welcome to the club, gentlemen). So far, there are no insider filings to indicate the founding escrow shareholders have sold any stock.

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